Likely some of you have heard this one before, but maybe it's been a while. Anyway, last show of summer 98 tour before Lemonwheel.

Second Ramble On of the tour, and this one is much more interesting, with the jam that segues right into Slave, which includes heavy Ramble On teases from Trey. Set 2, the Mike's is great, Simple has a very unusual but short, chunky jam that deviates from the song's structure (miniature Type II?) before melting seamlessly into Rift. Coil finishes the set (hardly played this tour, if at all?) and then you get that killer encore of Vernon Down the House and YEM. Great shit. Really fun show.

Possum was dedicated to its author, Jeff Holdsworth, and Fish’s band in high school, Frodo. Ramble On was played in honor of Fish seeing a Led Zeppelin concert at age eleven and contained Cocaine teases; Slave subsequently included Ramble On teases, as well as Those Were the Days teases from Trey and Mike. The Phish debut of Burning Down the House contained alternate lyrics ("Vernon down the house"). YEM included HYHU andMission: Impossible theme teases.

On August 12, 1998 Phish played outdoors at Vernon Downs – a harness racetrack in the town of Vernon, NY. This was the last regular show of 23 U.S. dates leading up to Lemonwheel, a tour dubbed the Summer Of Covers due to near-nightly bustouts of new cover songs. It was Phish’s only Vernon show and a homecoming for Jon Fishman, who grew up in nearby Syracuse. Vernon’s general admission, open field set the stage for a pre-festival barnburner.

Among set I highlights were theLa Grange > Makisupa Policeman > Funky Bitchopening sequence,Possumdedicated to Jeff Holdsworth, and a transcendentRamble On > Slave To The Traffic Lightset closer. Set II was a set-longMike’s Groove,from a potentMike’s Song > Simple > Riftthrough a fieryLoving Cup > Sleeping Monkey > Weekapaug Groove. The Encore featured summer’s last new cover - Phish’s onlyBurning Down The House(sung as “Vernon Down the House”) followed byYou Enjoy Myselfat Fish’s request. All in all this was an old-school, rowdy rocker with some serious jams throughout.

8/12/98 Vernon was recorded by Paul Languedoc to 2-track soundboard DAT and mastered by Fred Kevorkian. The show is available 2/13/18 via: the LivePhish+ App and as MP3, FLAC and FLAC HD downloads at LivePhish.com.